IkedaYa: Himura Battousai
by Dread Pirate Rinja
Summary: Battousai flees Kyoto with Tomoe on the night of the raid on Ikeda Inn. Mostly RurouKen universe with mild references to Peacemaker Kurogane.


_Warnings: Tsuikohen OVA and manga (volume 20) spoilers. Mild violence and language.

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_Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin, Peace Maker Kurogane, and all affiliated characters belong to their respective copyright holders and authors. The characters are used without permission for purely entertainment purposes – no profit is made (or will be made) from this story._

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**Ikeda-Ya: Himura Battousai**  
_Part One of Three in the** Ikeda-Ya** trilogy  
(reposted)_

He should have known something was amiss the moment the sake tasted sweet.

His life isn't meant to be one of joy, or happiness. Such emotions are forbidden in his line of work. _A hitokiri is a hitokiri until the day he dies._ He is destined to live, drink, breathe blood and to die an early death, preferably in battle. The faces of those he kills haunt him at night when he sleeps, torment his mind and harden his heart during the day. At the tender age of fifteen, he is a cold-blooded murderer, the shadow hitokiri that sends chills up the spines of the Wolves of Mibu.

Himura Battousai, bane of the Shinsengumi, right hand of Katsura, is not supposed to enjoy life. He knows what normal 15-year-olds are like – he's run into several of them himself. Compared to them, he feels… tainted. Stained by the crimson life of those who die by his sword.

Kitamura Suzu – now _that_ is a 15-year-old who isn't as stained. Himura has only met him once and felt incredibly awkward being introduced to the boy. Boy… heh. He too is a boy by the age standard. At any rate, the wide, sparkling crimson eyes he looked into are far too naïve to be involved in such a horrible war. The Battousai nearly envies the white-haired youth for his carefree sense of life, and his ability to run off and play when Toshimaro-san didn't have work for him.

Playing. That isn't something he's done in a very long time. Has he ever played before? The top he totes with him serves as his only reminder of a childhood long lost, long forgotten. The woman sitting before him just refuses to see that sometimes.

Why can't she see? Why doesn't she smell the blood that clings to him, the death that follows in his daily footsteps?

The sake isn't bitter. He should know, with his line of luck as it were, that it is a bad omen. His semi-enjoyable evening with the quiet girl named Tomoe will be shattered in a matter of moments.

They tear through the crowd of people at the festival. Toshimaro threatens to burn down Kyoto and is meeting at the Ikeda Inn to discuss it with other Choushuu leaders. Somehow the Shinsengumi know and are planning a raid. The news bears heavily on Battousai's chest – is Katsura in danger? How much time does he have to extract his leader from the inn?

The mood dispels; he now becomes the shadow killer of the night. Tactical mode. Vision narrows, fades to red as his inner demons cry out for blood. Mission: to extract Katsura from the raid, escape to safety.

A female presence tugs at his senses. _Tomoe…What would you think if you saw what I really am? Why I come back stained at night with the flesh and blood of other men?_

The situation changes. Send the girl away; the Shinsengumi surely aren't so low as to attack a woman. Get Katsura out at any cost – Tomoe will only hinder him, hold him back, endanger his mission.

No. She won't leave. _Saya_, she says. _A sheath for an untamable rage manifested in a brandished katana._

His heart tells him to hide from her the monster within. His mind tells him she is a liability. But his senses – the demon – warns him of danger, that it is too late for her to run, and that he has no time to waste forcing her to go. So be it. She watches, he kills, the walls cry tears of wolf blood.

A presence. _The_ wolf of Mibu is near. Saitou Hajime. His senses prickle as the familiar ki tugs at his consciousness, warning him of the imminent danger near the Ikeda Inn. _Katsura… if Katsura is there… _A second ki. Okita Souji. A third… Nagakura Shinpachi. These are the swordsmen to be feared from the Shinsengumi – their top three captains. A fourth, powerful and menacing. One of the higher leaders. And… another very deadly presence, but farther away. The raid is meant to be a massacre, to stamp out the Choushuu threat once and for all.

Panic wells deep within the Battousai's innards, quickly squelched by the blood-demon tearing at his soul. The smell of blood fills his nostrils, his soul drinking it in without even realizing it. A real fight, with not one, but _three_ of the Shinsen's greatest. _Fight, fight, FIGHT._

A cool hand on his, a whimper and a shake of a raven-haired head keeps his hand hovering in hesitation over the worn pommel of an overused katana. Eyes that speak a thousand words pierce his – _No, no more. Stop the bloodshed! Please!_ The soundless voice reverberates in his mind, echoing an inner voice that he's long since ignored.

The hesitation buys a few precious seconds to allow him to hear the announcement – Katsura is not at the meeting. The danger now lay in lingering here.

Relief, worry, then hurry. Must get back to Okami-dono, see what the matter is, check up on Katsura-san. Back door, Okami-dono says. It isn't safe here. He takes Tomoe with him, sheath accompanying its katana. Katsura is there – take Tomoe to the countryside, to Otsu, and act as a married couple, he says. Battousai obeys his liege lord, takes Tomoe by hand. _Shall we go to Otsu?_

Katsura leaves – the Shinsen are still near, and Kyoto is no longer safe for Imperialists. Soft delicate _unstained_ hand in his, the young hitokiri leads his new bride out of the complex when banging catches his attention. A familiar voice drifts over the gates, floating eerily through the empty and unsafe safe house, mourning and calling out for help.

Suzu.

"Please, Katsura-san! I know you can hear me!"

_No. Katsura-san isn't here now._

"Hurry! Please hurry and open the gates! There are only a few Shinsengumi. We can beat them if we go now!"

_We're not here anymore. We've all left…_

"Reinforcements! Please send some reinforcements! _I'm begging you!_"

_Toshimaro must be dead. The Shinsengumi have their best soldiers there; we have no reinforcements to send. _He doesn't notice that he pauses to listen. Tomoe tugs at his sleeve, a pleading look in her eye. Slowly, he turns and walks with her in silence.

"D-Damn… damn!" His heart cracks… "_Dammit! Damn it all to hell!_" …and then breaks. A tear slides down his cheek, hearing the forlorn cries of another who has lost his innocence. He quickly wipes it away before Tomoe can see.

"Are you _that_ scared of the Mibu Wolves? Don't you care if your comrades get killed?"

_Suzu. I'm so sorry…They're already dead._

"And you… _And you call yourselves nationalists_!"

_What are we, then? _

Into the night, they vanish like two shadows, moving steadily to Otsu. Kyoto is a city that is no longer safe for what is left of the Ishin Shishi. Not safe, must protect her…

Battousai drops his inner guards long enough to satiate an inner child, and discovers a world that he never knew existed. But his destiny, one of a hitokiri, will never allow him to savor such a world for so long without a cost.

And so, on a snow-covered night, white plum-scented blood stains his hands once more. The child is thrown further into despair.

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_.owari._

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_A hearty thank-you goes to my wonderful beta reader Nekotsuki. She did a marvelous job picking out my mistakes – she kept it in the present tense for me._

_I originally planned for this story to be the first part of a trilogy of crossovers between Rurouni Kenshin and Peace Maker Kurogane, centering around the Ikeda-Ya incident. I still plan to eventually write the other 2 installments, though I haven't come around to it just yet. Please do let me know how it reads; this was my first attempt at a story entirely in present tense, and I also tinkered a bit with my writing style._


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